


Pretty Boys

by elderprices



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Eating Disorders, Gen, HIV/AIDS, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, some nsfw, uhhhhhh i don't know how to write happy things for falsettos lmao???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 20:56:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8911666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elderprices/pseuds/elderprices
Summary: Whizzer's doing great.Whizzer's doing okay.Whizzer might have a problem or two.





	

Whizzer gets in at 4 o’clock.

He does what he’s told for three hours, until the alarm goes off at seven.

He watches his reflection over the bed and his eyes are blank and he’s detached from the world. The man beneath him is, too; in fact, every man has been. Because of drugs, usually.

They call him by different names. Sometimes it’s cute. Sometimes it’s because they don’t remember. Whizzer is okay being a Jon or a Ken or anything easier to pronounce in a drunken stupor. Whizzer pushes through for the cab fare and a little something extra he gets from discrete playmates. Word gets around. He doesn’t care; makes it easier to keep up with his meds.

Whizzer goes downtown. His apartment, while packed with men (who may or may not pay rent) in the evenings, is empty when he arrives home at 7:25 am. He puts the kettle on. He runs the tub. He stares at his naked body in the mirror until the teapot whistles. He steeps his tea. Then he goes back to the mirror until the tub threatens to overflow.

His hair looks to be thinning. The thought makes him insanely paranoid, and for the next two weeks he’ll be obsessing over his hairline.

In the tub, Whizzer covers his thighs with a washcloth so he doesn’t have to see them. He drinks his tea. It needs honey, but the man from Saturday night remarked Whizzer may have gained weight since last they screwed, and so sugar needs to be avoided at all cost. He washes his body with idle hands. Everything stings. He makes a mental note for more epsom salts with his next medication run.

He gets caught in the tub an extra few minutes with a coughing fit he can’t seem to shake.

Then it’s naptime. His alarm is set for 1pm, when he gets up and heads to the gym. Whizzer spends the next three and a half hours staring at the ceiling. He makes pictures of the water stains and cracks in the plaster. He thinks about Marvin. He hits himself for thinking about Marvin.

The alarm shrieks. Whizzer pulls himself to his feet. His duffle bag is packed and set by the door, though he barely remembers doing so. It’s hot outside, extremely sunny, but Whizzer insists on a jean jacket. Between his rendezvous from Monday and a bout of self mutilation that doesn’t want to heal, he’s got too much to hide.

Whizzer’s original idea is to go to the gym to exercise. The comment about him gaining weight still buzzes in his head and he needs to run miles just to feel a bit better about himself. He’s stuck in a routine where he can only listen to one cassette at a time until it simply wears out--the last three weeks have been Barbara. He runs. He lifts. His tape player runs out of batteries, but he keeps the headphones on to seem occupied.

A man--strong and tanned and relatively handsome--offers to spot for Whizzer.

Later Whizzer admires the man’s muscles on the floor of the steam room. He doesn’t mention Whizzer’s cuts or his bruises, he doesn’t tell him he needs to lose weight or that his hair is falling out. He cums in Whizzer’s mouth while he says some words Whizzer can’t understand, then he leaves without promising to call. And it’s for the best.

The pharmacy is two blocks down. Whizzer doesn’t remember what prescriptions are waiting for him today. In some sick way it’s like a guessing game. He gives his name at the desk and he waits. He buys a pack of gum while he waits. He chews three pieces at a time while he waits, and he examines his hairline in the unflattering camera feed overhead. An eternity passes. His drugs are on the counter now, all packed away and stapled into individual paper bags. Once back on the street, Whizzer tears them open like birthday gifts to read the labels. Some kind of penicillin for syphilis. ACV for herpes. Metoprolol. Whizzer remembers he didn’t grab a carton of epsom salts, so he pops a couple capsules of Ibuprofen before stuffing the rest back in the plastic pharmacy bag. 

He walks back to the apartment. It’s later than he wishes, and part of him wants to stay in all night. But Whizzer remembers his promise to Luis last they were together at Ty’s--better yet, he remembers Luis’ promise to _Whizzer_ if he behaves--and it’s enough motivation to get himself dressed. Almost an hour is spent on his hair. He swears that spot on the back of his head is thinning by the minute.

Whizzer has a few hours before Ty’s starts getting crowded. He knows it would be in bad taste to show up anytime before 1 am. He stops at a restaurant in close proximity, orders something healthy like a salad and seltzer. The decision doesn’t matter, as he’s sure to be vomiting it back up the moment he gets to the bar. But there’s something very comforting, very pedestrian, about sitting and eating and watching as if nothing is wrong.

The waiter is handsome. Whizzer leaves his number on the receipt as a tip.

It’s nearly midnight. Another club is coming to life across the street, and suddenly Whizzer doesn’t feel like sitting around all night waiting for Luis, who may not even show. He ducks in for the bathroom, first and foremost, and drops to his knees once he’s in the stall. He purges. Then he fishes a couple Metoprolol out of his jacket and knocks them back.

There’s a man standing outside the stall when Whizzer opens it. They exchange glances.

Four minutes later, Whizzer’s walking out to the dance floor. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, hoping someone will offer to buy him a drink. He feels weak, but tries to look like he’s sort of having a good time. A man moves up beside him. He greets Whizzer as an old friend, though he keeps calling him “Tim” and mentioning unfamiliar friends. Whizzer smiles and doesn’t give a shit.

Later, at the bar, the man buys Whizzer a drink he knows is Tim’s favorite. It’s all sugar--Whizzer doesn’t want to be rude so he drinks it, but is sure to throw it up before they head back to his place.

Whizzer watches his reflection the next morning. Apathetic. Detached. He takes his cab fare. He goes home, puts the kettle on, undresses, stares.

He has new marks on his body this morning, not from his romp the evening prior. A sort of rash, maybe, but not like ones he’s had before. While his bath is running he calls the clinic for an appointment. The weight of the water on his lungs brings up another coughing fit.

After the gym that day, Whizzer takes himself uptown to the clinic. He scratches at this newfound rash, not because it itches but because he knows it’s there. The office is busy--packed full of sick but gorgeous men all sporting similar problems as a result of excessive screwing. In the waiting room, they sit and flirt and discuss medications and exchange numbers. Whizzer is invited to an NYU student’s dorm after they’re both done at the doctor’s. The kid reminds Whizzer too much of himself. 

He’s on the table in the doctor’s office now, and he’s describing how he’s been feeling. Leaving out the details of self-harm. And purging. And possible depression. He does talk of the little bumps on his back and shoulders--just two or three, but raised above the skin and no doubt hideous to look at. He also offhandedly mentions his coughing fits, though he doesn’t think it’s a major concern. The doctor does his usual business--checking reflexes and blood pressure and heart beat--and takes short time to examine the small bumps on Whizzer’s back. He asks about Whizzer’s sexual activity. Whizzer decides a summarization of the last three days will suffice.

The doctor doesn’t have much news. “Take your medication, be kind to your body, maybe lay off the sex a little.”

Whizzer goes out that night and hooks up with two men in the backroom of a bar.

\---

A few weeks have gone by. Whizzer is back in the steam room with the handsome spotter, who caresses his naked body with strong and calloused hands. He’s running his fingers down the satisfying scoop in Whizzer’s back, and he’s cooing hot praise into Whizzer’s ear. It’s jarringly enjoyable, to be honest, though the steam makes it painfully difficult to breathe. Part of him is tempted to let his guard down, but just in time, the spotter stops short at Whizzer’s shoulders with a gasp. Whizzer asks what’s wrong. The spotter tells him that he has a purple growth on his shoulder blade. That he needs to go to the doctor and get it checked out because “that is _not_ normal.”

The clinic is still busy. Whizzer doesn’t feel like talking to anyone in the waiting room this time, but he’s still slipped an address as he’s called into the doctor’s office. Reflexes, blood pressure, heart beat all checked. “How is your medication working?” “Fine.” “Good, good.”

The doctor has Whizzer undress to examine his lesions--meanwhile Whizzer makes a comment about how difficult breathing has become recently. His mouth is examined and, after finding patches of fuzzy white on his palette, swabbed for testing. The purple welts are analyzed (another doctor is called in to reaffirm suspicions) and diagnosed as benign cancerous growths. With proper payment, it’s possible for a dermatologist to have them removed completely.

\---

It’s October. Whizzer picks up his new medication from the pharmacy, something to help him with his cough, hopefully his fever that comes and goes as well. He feels like shit. He knows he _looks_ like shit--he’s become so severely underweight he’s stopped going to the gym. He takes a break from the clubs. He’s too weak. All he does is sit in bed, reading, listening to electoral bullshit on the radio. The other men, who may or may not actually live in his apartment, sometimes keep him company. They discuss the side effects of their medications together. One of them (Emmanuel, Whizzer thinks his name is) mentions dismissively that he, too, is on Pentamidine for PCP. Another, maybe Christopher, compares his lesions with Whizzer’s. They make jokes about how they’re literally screwing themselves to death.

\---

The phone rings. One of the guys pokes his head into Whizzer’s room, says someone’s on the phone for him. Whizzer asks who. “Some kid.”

“Hello?”

“Is this Whizzer?”

Whizzer feels a little dizzy.

“... _Jason?_ ”

“Hey, Whizzer!”

“Where’d you get this number?”

“I know how to use a _phonebook_ , dummy.”

“Right.” Whizzer pauses to cough.

“You sound bad.”

“So what’s up?”

“Oh right! So I was calling to tell you that Hanukkah’s coming up.”

“Right…” Whizzer turns to the calendar on the wall. How is it already _December?_ Jason clears his throat on the other line.

“And my dad’s having like a party this weekend--”

“Jason…”

“--but he doesn’t have any friends. So it’s just gonna be me and him. And his lesbian friends are coming, too, but they’re not Jewish so I’m not really counting them.”

“ _Jason._ ”

“I was thinking maybe you should come!”

“Jason, I don’t think that’s--”

“I’m not telling you that you and my dad should make up or anything. My father’s very irritating, so I think everything was maybe for the best? But that’s not to say you guys can’t still be friends! And _I_ always thought you were pretty fun, so--oh, and you’d really like my dad’s lesbian friends. I think Cordelia’s a lot like you--”

Whizzer sighs helplessly, “Jason, buddy, I really appreciate you calling me and inviting me. It’s very sweet of you.”

Jason mimics his sigh, “But you’re not gonna come.”

“I think it’s for the best if I don’t, kid.”

There’s a silence on both sides of the line.

“That’s alright, Whizzer,” Jason finally admits. “I understand.”

“I’m sorry, Jason. Have a good Hanukkah.” He’s about to hang up, but snatches the phone back at the last second. “Don’t tell your dad you called me, okay?”

\---

Motivation kicks in. Whizzer starts eating actual meals. He goes to the gym. He takes his medicine regularly. He still screws, sure, but he’s cut alcohol consumption out of the equation for now. Part of him thinks it pathetic that just a gentle reminder of his ex-lover still existing is enough to get him back on his feet. Whizzer’s not sure if he’s doing all this to impress Marvin, should he ever run into him again, or to make him jealous of just how put together his life is. Either way, the end result is a healthy life, which he supposes is all that matters.

Jason calls again to invite Whizzer to a New Year’s Eve gathering. Whizzer’s cough hasn’t subsided completely yet, and he’s still due back at the dermatologist for one last removal. He says no, with regret.

The doctors at the clinic are much happier with Whizzer during his next visit. His rash, though not gone completely, has settled down immensely. Without the lesions, and with some extra healthy weight, Whizzer more or less returns to his old self. He takes pride in his appearance. He learns to accept his thinning hairline.

Jason calls Whizzer, tells him Marvin’s bringing him to the natural history museum. He can bring a friend if he wants. Whizzer hesitates, and has to think before declining.

Whizzer hasn’t screwed in two weeks. He hasn’t purged or hurt himself since God knows when. He’s never seen his body look so clean. The weather gets warmer. Whizzer feels happy by himself.

Jason calls Whizzer. He _promises_ this is the last time he’ll call.

“It’s my team’s first game of the season. A bunch of other people are gonna be there, so you don’t even have to talk to my mom _or_ my dad if you don’t want to. You can stand next to the bleachers and leave before the game is over.”

This isn’t about proving himself to Marvin anymore. Whizzer couldn’t care less about what his ex thinks of him. This is about Jason.

And he misses Jason so much.

“Just don’t tell your dad I’m coming.”

Jason laughs and says okay.


End file.
